Exploring the collections, acquisitions, and treasures of the Forest History Society

Archive for December 2nd, 2009

Three new photo galleries added to our website today contain more than 250 historic photos illustrating aspects of logging over the past century. The first gallery, Logging–Scaling, documents the work of scalers in the woods. A scaler was the person who measured and marked the quality of timber, and estimated the number of board feet in a log. Scalers used an instrument known as a “scale rule” to measure and place monetary value on the logs.

Scaling large log to measure volume of cut timber, July 1944.

With money at stake, scalers were sometimes the object of criticism. As scaling standards, practices, and instruments evolved, disputes over inconsistencies became commonplace. Many logging crews believed that the scaler automatically favored the millowners, and referred to his scale rule as a “cheat stick,” “thief stick,” “swindle stick,” or “robber’s cane.” For an excellent history of the work of the scaler, see “The Scaler: Forgotten Man in Maine’s Lumbering Tradition” by William S. Warner, from the October 1982 issue of the Journal of Forest History.

Two other new photo galleries document the transport of logs, one featuring images of trucks, and the other with images of tractors and wagons. The Logging–Hauling–Trucks gallery includes more than 100 images of trucks transporting large and small logs through various parts of the country.

The Logging–Hauling–Tractors and Wagons gallery shows the evolution of tractors, wagons, and trailers used to haul logs in the woods. Included are a few images of the earliest Caterpillar tractors built by the Holt Manufacturing Company in Stockton, California. A history of the crawler tractor, looking at the development of the Lombard log hauler and the Caterpillar tractor, can be found in the following clip from the FHS YouTube Channel: